


homecoming

by AlexiaBlackbriar13



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of Crying, Tending to injuries, coming home, post 7x07, showering together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 11:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16764172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiaBlackbriar13/pseuds/AlexiaBlackbriar13
Summary: The journey home from Slabside is exhausting for Oliver, who is already bloody, battered and bruised from the riot.Felicity takes care of him and stops him from fracturing.





	homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> listen
> 
> i have a lot of feelings ok

Oliver doesn’t speak during the journey from Slabside to the airport. It’s a four-hour drive and yet he doesn’t utter a single word. Tears track down his cheeks and he cries silently instead, as if he doesn’t quite believe this is happening. As if he thinks this is all a dream and he’s going to wake up back in his cold prison cell, alone.

Felicity cries as well. She finally has her husband back in her arms - she’s touching him and holding him and kissing him for the first time in _seven months_ \- and yet she somehow feels like the distance between them is even greater than it was when he was in prison and she was fighting to get him out.

Felicity puts it down to exhaustion. He’s bloody and bruised and battered, and he can barely walk. Knowing what occurred in the prison over the last twelve hours or so, Felicity isn’t surprised he’s so tired he can barely function. He buries his head in the crook of her neck, half slumped in her lap as Diggle drives them to the airport. His hands shake and legs wobble as they transition from the vehicle to the ARGUS private plane waiting for them on the airstrip. He struggles to carry his own weight; Felicity has to wrap her arms around his torso and practically carry him.

When Diggle gives them some privacy once they’re up in the air, Felicity unbuckles her seatbelt and crouches in front of her husband, fingers resting carefully on his knees. “Hey,” she whispers, to catch his attention. Oliver’s eyes flit over to meet hers from where he’s been gazing out of the window with a blank, dazed look. “I brought some clothes for you. Is it okay if I treat your wounds before you change?”

It takes a minute for Oliver to process what she’s saying and Felicity’s heart clenches as he glances down at himself ashamedly, at his blood-stained grey prison uniform. Eventually, he nods. For the first time since they’ve reunited, he speaks and rasps out, “Yes.”

Her eyes immediately fill with tears at the sound of his rough, weary voice. Her husband sounds broken, and he might be physically, but Felicity knows that underneath all the visible damage, there’s a scarred, traumatized, but beautiful soul who has fought for his family and freedom over the last half a year.

Felicity finds a medical kit in one of the plane cupboards and the silence stretches between them as she starts gently tending to his cuts and bruises, checking his head for a concussion and bones for fractures. Oliver flinches at her every touch. When Felicity has to turn away to grab another packet of antiseptic wipes after using up the entire first pack, her hands are trembling.

It’s when she’s turned away from him that Oliver finally speaks again, utterly fatigued. “Felicity… I’m so sorry.”

She wipes away her tears and forces back her sniffles. Her husband does need to apologize - for _so many things_ , she’s not going to lie - but she doesn’t want him to be sorry right now. Not when he’s about to shatter any second. “I don’t want to have this conversation now, Oliver,” she tells him softly. “I just want you to be okay. Recover first, then apologize to me, alright?”

There’s a frigid pause and then Oliver says, hopeless, “I don’t think I’ll ever truly understand why you still put up with me.”

Whipping around, furious at his self-deprecating statement, Felicity hesitates when she sees her husband cringe away at her sudden movements. His shivering grows more pronounced and he releases a quiet, exhausted whimper.

“Because I love you,” she whispers, cupping his face tenderly, brushing the pads of her fingers against the dozens of new tiny scars littering his cheeks and chin. “And I always will. Because when we married, we agreed to be each other’s forevers and I will never give up on you, no matter what you think about yourself.”

He stares back at her as if he can scarcely believe she’s real. Then his eyes well with tears again and he cracks out, “I’m so tired, Felicity. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“You don’t have to. I’m here to fight for you.”

They decide not to change Oliver out of his prison uniform as he can’t hold his own arms up and struggles to stand long enough to get the clothes off. Her husband sleeps fitfully for the rest of the flight. They flip the seat dividers up so he can curl up with his head on Felicity’s lap, his hand clenched in her shirt like she’s his lifeline. He stirs and cries out from nightmares, his muscles coiling as if in preparation for an attack and a tortured expression on his face that makes Felicity wilt. He’s soothed only when she strokes over his shoulders and side, murmuring quiet assurances that he’s safe and she’s with him.

Diggle arranges for a wheelchair when they arrive at the private airport outside of Star City, so they can move the archer to the car. If Oliver notices how Felicity doesn’t talk to their friend except when she needs to, with sharp, short sentences and questions, he doesn’t ask about it. She’s still incredibly angry and upset by Diggle refusing to support her over the last couple of weeks and feels almost irritated that he was the one who came to collect her husband with her, when he did basically nothing to help her get him out except what ARGUS permitted him to do.

“I missed you,” Oliver mumbles once they’ve reached the apartment they’ll be staying in for the foreseeable future, an ARGUS safehouse Lyla offered up for them to use. They can’t go back to their old apartment - it was broken into and completely trashed in the summer. “More than you’ll ever be able to comprehend.”

“I missed you too,” Felicity says. She takes hold of his hands and raises them to her mouth, planting kisses over his knuckles and palms. “These last few months have been hell for both of us.”

He extends his quaking arm and tucks a loose lock of blonde hair behind her eye, blue eyes wet and shining. “Every time they told me I had a visitor, I was waiting to see you, but you never came.”

Felicity’s heart clenches with guilt. She doesn’t want to talk about why she didn’t visit her husband, or why she was so reluctant to. There’s some part of her that’s frustrated that he’s making her feel guilty when Oliver has a hundred more things to be guilty about considering what he put her and William through, but he’s in no state to hold an argument with her. He looks as if he’s about to pass out any second.

“Do you want to shower? Eat something? Go to bed?” she asks.

“Shower,” he answers. “Will you help me?” His cheeks flush red with faint embarrassment, but the color in his pale cheeks triggers a smile to quirk at Felicity’s lips. “I… I don’t think I’ll be able to stand.”

“Of course.” She presses a kiss against his forehead. “Come on.”

It takes ten minutes for Oliver to strip with Felicity’s help, with all his strained muscles and aching limbs. The steam from the shower while they wait for the water to heat up causes Oliver’s scars, old and new, to show up pink and painful against his skin, which is white considering he’s had insufficient sunlight exposure. He has bandages wrapped around his side, covering a stab wound. It’s a waterproof covering and although it needs to be changed soon, it will be okay for now.

Oliver stands still and leans against the wall, allowing Felicity to carefully clean his body with a non-scented, gentle body wash. He closes his eyes and tears begin falling once again as she soaps up his arms, chest, and back. It’s intimate but there’s no sexual charge to this situation. She’s entirely focused on helping to get him clean and there’s no possible way he’ll be able to manage sex with her when he can’t even stand. Felicity wipes grime and dirt from his skin and brown water gathers at their feet before washing down the drain.

“I want to talk to William,” Oliver mutters, wrapped in his huge fluffy towel on the toilet and hunched over as his wife dries off his legs and feet. “I… I need to call him. Let him know I’m okay. That I’m home.”

“We can do that tomorrow,” Felicity replies. “Right now, you need to eat and drink something and get some sleep.”

They dress him in shorts and a t-shirt, and Felicity hands him a hoodie when she sees him shudder from the cold but not complain about it. Oliver declines all the food she offers, claiming not to be hungry. She suspects that he’s feeling nauseous and ill, but doesn’t want to admit it. He obediently finishes a bottle of vitamin water, promising to eat tomorrow. He even offers to make pancakes for breakfast. Felicity laughs through new tears and tells him she has experience making coffee now so together they could open a cafe if Smoak Tech falls through. It makes Oliver crack a smile, so it’s worth it.

When they clamber into bed together, her husband appears so lost and unsure that Felicity has to reach over and pull him into an embrace to comfort him. She arranges blankets and pillows around them so he’ll be comfortable and can rest how he wants and needs to without putting pressure on his injuries. Once he’s situated in a resting position, Felicity slides in front of him, hugging him to her so her chin is propped on the crown of his head. Her fingertips cautiously map out the marks on his back and shoulder blades and her breath hitches with every new scar she comes across. There are so many. It’s as if her husband came back from war rather than returned home from prison. There will be time in the future to explore his body and all its new marks, but now is definitely not that time.

Oliver lies in her arms, trembling once again. “I don’t know if this is real,” he cries.

She peppers his face with kisses. “It’s real. I’m here. You’re free and you’re safe. I’ve got you Oliver, and I’m never letting you go again.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, hope you enjoy xx
> 
> twitter: @lexiblackbriar  
> tumblr: @alexiablackbriar13


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